Microsoft is certainly not winning people over with the way in which it is pushing Windows 10 down users’ throats, and things just got worse. It seems the company is making a series of final pushes before the free upgrade offer ends on July 29, but it also seems that Microsoft’s zealotry concerning Windows 10 is simply losing fans.

What some people have called harassment started back in October 2015 when consumers complained that just saying NO to a Windows 10 upgrade was becoming a difficult and irksome task indeed. At the time Microsoft said that the upgrade would come as a ‘recommended update’ for Windows 7 and 8.1 users, although, according to a spokesperson for Microsoft, “Windows Update settings are configured to accept ‘Recommended’ updates”. This was perhaps sneaky, but entirely expected.

It seems that wasn’t enough though, and just lately Microsoft stooped to a new low by making the red x on the Windows screen – the x we all know will close the window  – to mean the same as ‘OK’, I want to upgrade to Windows 10. For all intents and purposes this is an act of deception, something we might expect to happen when we’re trying to watch the latest blockbuster movie online for free, but not when we’re dealing with our trusted and loyal friend Microsoft.

In its own fairly weak defense Microsoft said that the upgrade could be cancelled. Perhaps, but only after an unwitting user had fallen inside a trap that had been laid.

So just when we thought Microsoft might be feeling a little repentant after being roundly criticized for their deception, the company seems to have taken its wily ways a little further. So much so that one of the best-known tech writers following Microsoft, and co-host of Windows Weekly, Paul Thurrott, called the move “indefensible” and said that the entire debacle concerning the upgrade push has now undermined Windows 10.

Thurrott writes, “For months now, I’ve complained about the software giant’s heavy-handed tactics in trying to trick customers into upgrading to Windows 10. But a recent change to the Get Windows 10 advertisement that is forced on Windows 7 and 8.1 users takes things entirely too far. This is indefensible.”

The advertisement, says Thurrott, is pretty much impossible to hide. He talks about this ad as if it were The Terminator, calling it “unstoppable”, something that changes regularly so even if you do manage to find a way to cancel it will evolve and a new version of itself will be part of the next Windows auto-installed update. In other words Microsoft is saying, You Will Watch the Ad.

Thurrott’s damning conclusion to all this: “The violation of trust here is almost indescribable.” Strong words, capped with “You couldn’t write a dumber story about how to ruin something that is otherwise as wonderful as Windows 10.”

Photo credit: Taber Andrew Bain via Flickr